‘No Man’s Sky’ Provides Another Intriguing Trailer, But Game Still A Mystery
No Man’s Sky was one of the upcoming games featured during the Games Awards Show on Friday night. Like previous trailers, it was intriguingly beautiful, but also very much like previous trailers with few new details. The PlayStation 4 and PC title has generated a ton of buzz among the press and gamers, but not much has been revealed about what players should actually expect gameplay wise.
The Portal trailer for the procedurally-generated game again started players off on a random yet gorgeous planet similar to the same theme from the VGX trailer last year. There’s interesting alien plant and wildlife along with one of the of “Malevolent Force” robots revealed in this month’s Game Informer magazine.
The point of the trailer was revealed on the game’s official website, however. It’s meant to show the different ways that players can travel in No Man’s Sky.
“‘Portal’ is just one story that you can find yourself writing as you play No Man’s Sky. It also reveals five ways you’ll travel the galaxy: walking across the surface of planets, flying in their atmospheres, jetting into space, warping between systems and finding mysterious portals, which take you… somewhere.”
In addition to the portals, we are shown more of the wildlife that players can encounter on the different planets. The creatures that look like a cross between flying goldfish and flying whales are particularly amazing. No Man’s Sky is still in development, so the pop-in from the procedural world generation seen when flying over worlds is understandable. Hopefully, it’s something that can be solved before its 2015 release. However, developer Hello Games still appears to have a problem communicating what the point of No Man’s Sky is in this second trailer.
So far, the only objective really shown behind No Man’s Sky is that of exploring the universe. Ground combat with the Malevolent Force robots and Halo-like battles in space are promised in the Game Informer article, but have yet to be shown. This has led to some confusion and concern mixed in with the amazement among gamers.
“Game looks great but at this point we should see what we can do in that universe other than exploring it,” Elios83 wrote on NeoGAF.
“I’m scared this is just another Child of Eden / Flower where I’m amazed for the first 30 minutes but bored after 2 hours,” added Rad-.
Prominent gaming personalities like Cliff Bleszinksi and Total Biscuit were also perplexed.
Still excited for No Man’s Sky, but are we ever going to see any actual *gameplay*?!
— Cliff Bleszinski (@therealcliffyb) December 6, 2014
No Man’s Sky? More like, No Damn Idea how this thing is going to work still! ZING!
— TotalBiscuit (@Totalbiscuit) December 6, 2014
It’s important to remember though that Minecraft is another game that doesn’t appear to have much point behind it. It’s gone on to be one of the biggest selling games of all time and carried a $2.5 billion price tag. Hello Games still has much to prove though before it can reach Minecraft levels of popularity though.
The big difference is that Minecraft grew its popularity organically through people playing and sharing their experiences. No Man’s Sky is generating hype on the level of a AAA game with big magazine spreads and prominently placed trailers before anyone has even gotten their hands on it.
What do you think of No Man’s Sky and the hype that has been built up around it? Please share you thoughts in the comments below.
[Images via No Man’s Sky]
